Agreed he's no superstar, but they're few and far between. As far as free agents go, I'll take the Heyward deal any day over what was given to Panda, Hanley, Crawford, Beltran, (to name a few from the past) and what will be given to Davis, Upton and Gordon this year. The back end of those contracts will be really, really ugly...in a Ryan Howard sort of way.
His worth/value is relative, based on the market. Clearly this is a great time to be on the management side of baseball- you're rolling in cash, with more coming in every time a TV contract is sealed or a big market team blows out the salary cap. You can sign fantastic young players for peanuts (again relative) and control them through their primes, mitigating the risk of paying an injured player or a hobbled veteran who is a shell of his former self (Sabbathia). When you've used them up, you can trade them away and reload with new prospects or let some other rich sucker team overpay.
It's rare that a player comes to free agency at as young an age as Heyward, so getting him for 8 years instead of 10 at under 200 million is an excellent deal IMO.
I will say that the $$ being thrown at free agents these days puts the Angels deal with Trout into perspective. Could be the best long term contract ever! He'd get twice that amount today, with ease.
